MCP Slim: Local Embedding Search for MCP Tools Reduces Context Bloat

MCP Slim is a proxy tool that addresses MCP's context bloat problem by replacing full tool catalogs with three meta-tools: search, describe, and call. Instead of loading all tool definitions upfront, the LLM searches for what it needs, reducing context window usage by 96%.

Key Details

The tool specifically targets MCP's documented context bloat issue where connecting a few servers can consume 55,000+ tokens on tool definitions before the first message. MCP Slim's main differentiator from other proxies like mcp-compressor and MCProxy is its use of semantic search with a local MiniLM embedding model. This allows it to find relevant tools without keyword overlap - for example, "save a note" can find create_entities.

The tool runs fully offline and requires no API keys. It works with any stdio MCP client including Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, Windsurf, and Zed.

Installation and Setup

Installation is done via: npx mcp-slim init

The GitHub repository is available at: https://github.com/dopatools/mcp-slim

The author (/u/OpportunitySpare2441) has offered to answer questions about the architecture or tradeoffs.